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Cameron wants another seven years as PM...
Comments
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The problem is labour literally pay for votes with benefits and bring the county to its knees, the current lot are doing the right thing in not paying for votes with benefits, the problem is the hard working few amongst us who can see this as a good thing are in the minority so they may not get enough votes to continue.
Can't say I noticed loads of benefit claimants hogging polling stations at the last election.
Ian Duncan-Smith was on the radio this morning trying to justify why, when pension related benefits are around half of the welfare bill, pensioners were not really being targeted with cuts. He said it was because pensioners are least able to react to changes at their time of life (fair enough) but it was absolutely nothing to do with them being enthusiastic voters (hmmm).0 -
The problem is labour literally pay for votes with benefits and bring the county to its knees, the current lot are doing the right thing in not paying for votes with benefits, the problem is the hard working few amongst us who can see this as a good thing are in the minority so they may not get enough votes to continue.
Another view is that Conservatives pare everything to the bone, dismantling and removing services (often as a result of unintended, unanticipated consequences) which Labour are faced with re balancing and replacing. Both sides go too far if left in power for too long, like a pendulum swinging too wide. A small state is a laudable aspiration but the privates sector cannot be trusted anymore than the public sector.
Private companies, whether paid for directly by the individual or through the tax take are not in it for altruistic reasons. They are their to extract the most profit they can get away with. An efficient public sector should be able to deliver services just as effectively , if not more so than private companies, in part due to economies of scale and risks being widely spread. As we know there are inefficiencies in the public sector but private sector companies often "adopt the mantle" and are just as bad plus a profit needs to be extracted somewhere.
Successive governments of all colours have led us to this position Labour are just part of the jigsaw. The problems this country are in are not those of Labour in isolation.
I have no time for any of them and to believe that you will pay less for the basket of services you need though life, with any party, is naive."If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
grizzly1911 wrote: »Another view is that Conservatives pare everything to the bone, dismantling and removing services (often as a result of unintended, unanticipated consequences) which Labour are faced with re balancing and replacing. Both sides go too far if left in power for too long, like a pendulum swinging too wide. A small state is a laudable aspiration but the privates sector cannot be trusted anymore than the public sector.
Private companies, whether paid for directly by the individual or through the tax take are not in it for altruistic reasons. They are their to extract the most profit they can get away with. An efficient public sector should be able to deliver services just as effectively , if not more so than private companies, in part due to economies of scale and risks being widely spread. As we know there are inefficiencies in the public sector but private sector companies often "adopt the mantle" and are just as bad plus a profit needs to be extracted somewhere.
Successive governments of all colours have led us to this position Labour are just part of the jigsaw. The problems this country are in are not those of Labour in isolation.
I have no time for any of them and to believe that you will pay less for the basket of services you need though life, with any party, is naive.
It certainly isn't black and white and neither party is all good or all bad (though looking back at Blair/Brown I struggle to find anything to enthuse about beyond the smoking ban and the civil partnerships to end unreasonable disadvantaging of our gay community.)
But I think this notion that Labour looks after the public services and the Tories dismantle them is a myth. Labour did immeasurable damage to the NHS with the targets culture and breeding of bureaucratic jobs at the expense of medical ones. We now have a crisis of hygiene and caring culture as a result. They turned the Police from law enforcement towards being politically correct social workers. During their term of office the crisis in elderly care became evident but they did nothing at all to deal with it. Education was dumbed down and exams made easier in order to present a rosy picture of their failed policies and to appease leftist educational idealogues. Across the public sector we have private finance initiatives, with the taxpayer locked into contracts such that they cannot win and the companies involved cannot lose.
The coalition is trying to address all of these issues, with mixed success, but at least it is trying.No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well.
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
Margaret Thatcher0 -
GeorgeHowell wrote: »It certainly isn't black and white and neither party is all good or all bad (though looking back at Blair/Brown I struggle to find anything to enthuse about beyond the smoking ban and the civil partnerships to end unreasonable disadvantaging of our gay community.)
But I think this notion that Labour looks after the public services and the Tories dismantle them is a myth. Labour did immeasurable damage to the NHS with the targets culture and breeding of bureaucratic jobs at the expense of medical ones. We now have a crisis of hygiene and caring culture as a result. They turned the Police from law enforcement towards being politically correct social workers. During their term of office the crisis in elderly care became evident but they did nothing at all to deal with it. Education was dumbed down and exams made easier in order to present a rosy picture of their failed policies and to appease leftist educational idealogues. Across the public sector we have private finance initiatives, with the taxpayer locked into contracts such that they cannot win and the companies involved cannot lose.
The coalition is trying to address all of these issues, with mixed success, but at least it is trying.
Carrying on with your opinion of the Labour Party's damage to our country...
May I say that when I made issue with the performance of our present Chancellor, and I said on this Forum that how could he attain such a position with no work experience, I was told that he was only the figurehead and was always advised by a team of Civil Servants and it was not him personally that was responsible.
If this is the case then please tell me why the Civil Servants that advised George Brown allowed him to sell off our countries Gold reserve at such a low price?
s was reported by the Telegraph..
The decision to sell the gold – taken by Mr Brown when he was Chancellor – is regarded as one of the Treasury's worst financial mistakes and has cost taxpayers almost £7 billion.
Mr Brown and the Treasury have repeatedly refused to disclose information about the gold sale amid allegations that warnings were ignored.0 -
grizzly1911 wrote: »
The problems this country are in are not those of Labour in isolation.
Labour saddled enterprise with far too many social engineering regulations, forgetting the knock-on effect on wealth creation. I've seen the consequences with my own eyes where hitherto active entrepeneurs just wanting the chase and thrill ride of testing a new business idea, have been turned off by the energy sapping weight of regulation which impacts so many interconnected areas.
In place of enterprise Labour set about doubling the PS.
I'm sorry but this upset the equilibrium, you just cannot sustaina western democracy this way. Sure maybe the Chinese can but they do that by a policy of low worker protections and incomes so there is an illusion the state can bring about prosperity. The avergae Chinese worker is still 20 times poorer than thier American cousins.0 -
Carrying on with your opinion of the Labour Party's damage to our country...
May I say that when I made issue with the performance of our present Chancellor, and I said on this Forum that how could he attain such a position with no work experience, I was told that he was only the figurehead and was always advised by a team of Civil Servants and it was not him personally that was responsible.
If this is the case then please tell me why the Civil Servants that advised George Brown allowed him to sell off our countries Gold reserve at such a low price?
s was reported by the Telegraph..
The decision to sell the gold – taken by Mr Brown when he was Chancellor – is regarded as one of the Treasury's worst financial mistakes and has cost taxpayers almost £7 billion.
Mr Brown and the Treasury have repeatedly refused to disclose information about the gold sale amid allegations that warnings were ignored.
I don't think Osborne has done as badly as Brown who also had no background outside of politics as far as I am aware -- he who screwed up bank regulation with the result we saw in 2008, who almost bankrupted the country with reckless spending and borrowing, who was going to abolish boom and bust (:rotfl:), and who spent most of his time trying to shaft Blair and become PM : a job that he abjectly could not do when he got it.
Your understanding of what happened re the gold is different from mine. I believe that even before the 1997 election Geoffrey Robinson and Ed Balls advised Brown that their socialist policies would not be affordable. Two schemes were devised by Balls to raise money -- selling off a shed load of gold, and raiding private pension funds. The civil service may have actually advised against selling the gold at such low prices, which would explain why it's all kept quiet by the Treasury because they're not supposed to divulge that sort of thing.No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well.
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
Margaret Thatcher0 -
GeorgeHowell wrote: »I don't think Osborne has done as badly as Brown who also had no background outside of politics as far as I am aware -- he who screwed up bank regulation with the result we saw in 2008, who almost bankrupted the country with reckless spending and borrowing, who was going to abolish boom and bust (:rotfl:), and who spent most of his time trying to shaft Blair and become PM : a job that he abjectly could not do when he got it.
Your understanding of what happened re the gold is different from mine. I believe that even before the 1997 election Geoffrey Robinson and Ed Balls advised Brown that their socialist policies would not be affordable. Two schemes were devised by Balls to raise money -- selling off a shed load of gold, and raiding private pension funds. The civil service may have actually advised against selling the gold at such low prices, which would explain why it's all kept quiet by the Treasury because they're not supposed to divulge that sort of thing.
There seems to be some very deep issues involved here, far beyond my getting to grips with it, the plot thickens, I see that Geoffrey Robinson got to such prominance as being Postmaster General with no accountancy qualifications at all. And then Ed Balls, a load of in my opinion. Thanks George...
I read about an American Senator, forget his name who said...
... " A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money"?0 -
GeorgeHowell wrote: »It certainly isn't black and white and neither party is all good or all bad (though looking back at Blair/Brown I struggle to find anything to enthuse about beyond the smoking ban and the civil partnerships to end unreasonable disadvantaging of our gay community.)
But I think this notion that Labour looks after the public services and the Tories dismantle them is a myth. Labour did immeasurable damage to the NHS with the targets culture and breeding of bureaucratic jobs at the expense of medical ones. We now have a crisis of hygiene and caring culture as a result. They turned the Police from law enforcement towards being politically correct social workers. During their term of office the crisis in elderly care became evident but they did nothing at all to deal with it. Education was dumbed down and exams made easier in order to present a rosy picture of their failed policies and to appease leftist educational idealogues. Across the public sector we have private finance initiatives, with the taxpayer locked into contracts such that they cannot win and the companies involved cannot lose.
The coalition is trying to address all of these issues, with mixed success, but at least it is trying.
In another x years we will have a catalogue of poor performance by the conservatives. They have already provided content.
Many of the policies they were merely following through from previous administrations, PFI (was introduced by the conservatives), hospital bureaucracy from previous ideological tampering, or fudging in yet another direction. Hygiene protocols were corrected under the Labour watch. Lack of care is partly down to policy, management and starving the front end of resources over decades. We now have NMW HCAs doing the job of nurses. If the figure of 6000 nurses lost under the conservatives is true then top down mantra, "must do better" isn't necessarily going to make any difference in the real world.
Police are a law unto themselves no government has ever sorted them out. I'm not sure they have been turned into social workers deliberately more because they end up saddled with the problems because there isn't anywhere else to deal with the issues.
All governments are guilty of stealth and spin it would be nice to see one that actually spelled out what they were trying to achieve with honesty. It would also be nice to see what it was going to cost on one/two sides of A4. If they need to bury it in 500 page budget documents then they are hiding it for a reason.
Not sure why education is so mixed, only that both sides have had the blender in there, but I guess we get what we pay for like the health service.
It will interesting we share in the newly negotiated PFI contracts.
Lower taxation isn't going to happen, apart from an elite few and those that are now working the system. Smaller "government" isn't going to happen we just call them something else like Serco, Capita or G4S."If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
Labour saddled enterprise with far too many social engineering regulations, forgetting the knock-on effect on wealth creation. I've seen the consequences with my own eyes where hitherto active entrepeneurs just wanting the chase and thrill ride of testing a new business idea, have been turned off by the energy sapping weight of regulation which impacts so many interconnected areas.
In place of enterprise Labour set about doubling the PS.
I'm sorry but this upset the equilibrium, you just cannot sustaina western democracy this way. Sure maybe the Chinese can but they do that by a policy of low worker protections and incomes so there is an illusion the state can bring about prosperity. The avergae Chinese worker is still 20 times poorer than thier American cousins.
Are those social engineering regulations all down to labour or were they merely the conduit form the EU?"If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
grizzly1911 wrote: »Are those social engineering regulations all down to labour or were they merely the conduit form the EU?
No doubt some were EU driven. But that's why Labour, the LibDems and much of the left likes the EU so much. They believe (quite rightly in my view) that the federal EU will be based on perpetual lukewarm socialism funded by capitalism -- just how they like it.No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well.
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
Margaret Thatcher0
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